Apple and Samsung CEOs are set to meet for their (court-requested) settlement negotiations on or before February 19. There is likely to be some discussion and flexibility around the settlement and license fees that change hands but if Samsung wants a deal, it will have to accept an anti-cloning provision, as HTC did before it, that would allow Apple to still bring lawsuits if Samsung products resembled Apple’s offerings too closely, reports FOSS Patents.

The report states that this provision may very well be a deal breaker. As much as Samsung might fight an anti-cloning provision, which is clearly at odds with the strategy that has enabled Samsung to take a dominant position in the smartphone market, it is a safe assumption that a deal will only be made if Samsung accepts this.

From FOSS Patents:

In a sworn declaration of January 16, 2014, Apple’s BJ Watrous, Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel, told the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that Apple’s “discussions with Samsung have consistently included limits to both the scope of any license and a prohibition against cloning Apple products.”

On that basis, Apple’s lawyers wrote on the same day: “Samsung incorrectly claims [in its opposition to Apple's motion] that Apple made recent offers to Samsung without anti-cloning provisions. Every offer Apple made to Samsung has included limits to both the scope of any license and a prohibition against cloning Apple products.”

If Samsung were to accept an anti-cloning provision, they would have to put a lot of work into ‘designaround’ solutions to avoid infringing on Apple patents in its products.

About Adam Oram

Adam Oram, Managing Editor. A Media and Communications graduate from Newcastle University in the UK, Adam is a Bradford City FC fanatic and self-confessed tech nerd covering app reviews and opinion pieces for TiP. Follow him on Twitter: @adamoram

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